Some embodiments described herein relate generally to switch fabric systems, and, in particular, to methods and apparatus for providing and aggregating route installation acknowledgements based on border gateway protocol (BGP) within a switch fabric system.
In some known switch fabric systems, when a route is introduced in BGP, receipts of the route do not provide any explicit acknowledgement on route installation to the originator of the route. Thus, the originator of the route does not have information on whether or when the intended recipients of the route have received and/or installed the route.
Some other known switch fabric systems use route reflectors to distribute route information. In such switch fabric systems, the originator of a route typically does not know the ultimate recipients of the route. Furthermore, with multiple route reflectors used in such switch fabric systems, typically, no single BGP node knows about all the receipts of a route. Therefore, even though one-hop acknowledgement for route installation may be available in some scenarios, the originator of a route, however, still does not receive all the acknowledgements on route distribution and installation from the intended ultimate recipients of the route.
Accordingly, a need exists for a mechanism to provide a route installation acknowledgement from receipts of a route based on BGP in a switch fabric system. Additionally, a need exists for a multi-hop aggregation mechanism for aggregating route installation acknowledgements when route reflectors are used in the switch fabric system.